Swimming is a common past-time practiced by a large segment of the population. It is also an important survival skill that is taught and learned by many persons as a small child. In addition, competitive swimming is an internationally competitive sport featured prominently as an Olympic sport and in scholastic and intercollegiate athletics. As such, the methods and devices used in the instruction of swimming have wide appeal.
Swim instruction is provided at many different levels and for many different reasons, from taking an infant and acclimating it to the water to teaching basic water safety to small children, all the way up to perfecting strokes of skilled experienced swimmers competing at the highest levels. The need for an innovative mirror that can be used in and around water at various stages of swim instruction is identified.
Small children, particularly infants, have been demonstrated to be more secure and readily acclimated to the water if they are able to see a familiar face when being introduced to the water, including their own reflection. A child or infant seeing his own face, reflected in a nearby mirror, is more comfortable and receptive to swim instruction. Thus there is identified a need for a mirror that can be positioned to provide a child's reflection, which is also safe and easily maintained around pools, particularly a mirror that is shatterproof, waterproof, impervious to chlorine and scratch and scuff resistant.
As children get older and move from infants to toddlers and beyond, swim instruction and learning remains important, although different skills are being taught and refined as the child ages. For example, a child's ability to go underwater and remain underwater, and to swim down to a certain depth, becomes an important building block in the instruction of swimming. Incentives to motivate children to go underwater and to swim down are well known, such as sink toys that go to the bottom of a pool and must be retrieved. It has also been found that a mirror placed underwater, that allows children to see themselves while underwater, is popular as a motivational tool to get them to go underwater. There is thus identified a need for a mirror that can be positioned underwater and which is safe and easily maintained around pools, particularly a mirror that is shatterproof, waterproof, impervious to chlorine and scratch and scuff resistant.
A wide array of training devices are well known for competitive swimmers that allow them to see, analyze and modify their stroke while in the water. Examples of such training devices include tanks and devices that hold a swimmer stationary either by mechanical means or by creating a current against which the swimmer swims.
A vast number of prior art devices and methods have been utilized in the instruction of swimming, including kickboards such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,518,364; 6,955,577; 6,840,831; and 5,518,429. In addition, devices and methods for holding a swimmer afloat or stationary in the water so that swimming strokes can be safely practiced and perfected are well known, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 644,593; 1,238,380; 5,236,404; 5,391,080; 5,813,945; 6,905,444; 6,960,086; and 6,347,971.
In addition, other prior art devices have disclosed the use of mirrors in water to allow competitive swimmers to observe their strokes while in water, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,693,570 and 2,875,528. In both of those patents, the mirrors utilized underwater were large and permanently mounted underwater and intended to give the swimmer a full view of his arms and legs while underwater. Those mirrors were not capable of being hand held, or of being detached from the pool wall or bottom to which they were affixed.
To improve the method and devices for swim instruction, there is thus provided a need for a shatterproof, scratch resistant, waterproof and chlorine resistant mirror that can be easily held by a swim instructor with one hand while holding an infant or small child with the other hand. By holding the mirror above the child while entering the water, such that the child can see himself, the instructor improves the acclimation of the child to the water. The mirror is also capable of being used by an instructor in later stages of swim instruction by attaching it to the sides or bottom of a pool to provide an amusing incentive for children to go underwater and to swim down to a depth such that they can see themselves.
There is thus identified a need for a mirror that is safe around water in that it is shatterproof and waterproof. Also, the mirror should be scratch and scuff resistant and should be non-reactive with chlorine for long life around pools. Providing a mirror that has a convenient and accessible handle allows its use as an infant comforting mirror by allowing an instructor to hold the mirror with one hand while holding the infant with the other. Further, a means for attaching the mirror to the wall or bottom of a pool would be similarly advantageous.